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The Vampire Lestat to Return to Big Screen in The Tale of the Body Thief?

February 8, 2012 — Marty

We first saw Anne Rice’s Lestat in 1994’s Interview With the Vampire, with Tom Cruise playing Lestat. The vampire was back in 2002’s Queen of the Damned, with Stuart Townsend playing the character. Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, it looks like Lestat might come back to the big screen, with Rice’s The Tale of the Body Thief being optioned by Imagine Entertainment.

The Tale of the Body Thief, the fourth book in Rice’s series, The Vampire Chronicles, tells the story of Lestat switching bodies with a psychic so he can escape the drudgery of being a vampire for a little while. Meanwhile, the psychic, who’s actually thrilled to have all the powers of the undead, splits, forcing Lestat to track him down so he can get his body back.

Books get optioned all the time, but that doesn’t mean they’ll actually complete the journey from page to screen, so maybe we won’t be assaulted by this. I couldn’t finish Interview with the Vampire in book form, couldn’t stand Cruise as a vampire, and was even less enthused with Queen of the Damned. Lestat was one of those first angsty vampires that opened the door to allow Edward Cullen into our world. I’m ready for the Twilight craze to die so vampires can once again reign from their blood-drenched thrones. The Tale of the Body Thief might keep the emo vampire in the spotlight, and it needs to have a stake driven through its heart.